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Amazon Fire TV Versus Apple TV, Roku And Chromecast

With the announcement of its Fire TV set-top box, Amazon finally breaks into the streaming video player market. The $99 Fire TV faces strong competition for living room dominance, however. The increasingly crowded marketplace includes the top-selling AppleApple TV, Roku’s well-regarded lineup of players, and Google'sGoogle's budget-priced Chromecast.

Full disclosure: As a former employee of an Amazon subsidiary, I own shares in Amazon.

Roku, a company originally spun off from NetflixNetflix, essentially created the set-top market, and its lineup of players offer the widest selection of “channels”, including Amazon Instant Video. The Apple TV, despite very little promotion, still managed to generate $1 billion in sales (including downloads) last year, according to Apple. And Google’s Chromecast, released last summer, has regularly been the top seller in the electronics category on Amazon’s own site.

While all of these devices cover the basics, letting you watch on-demand content on your TV in full HD, there are some important distinctions to be aware of. You can watch Netflix, Hulu Plus and some pro sports leagues on all of them. One big limitation of the Apple TV, however, is that you can’t access the Amazon Instant Video library. Instead, you’re offered access to the iTunes Store, which is in turn unavailable on non-Apple set-top boxes. The two dongle devices from Roku and Google, while lower in price and able to be hidden away behind your TV, do entail compromises. The most obvious being the lack of a wired Ethernet option and other external ports. The more expensive set-top boxes offer more flexibility in this regard. Both the Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV offer optical connections for audio devices and the Fire TV and Roku 3 have a USB port.

In terms of user experience and core features, it’s become increasingly difficult for Apple and Roku to differentiate their products. But Amazon offers some useful features that its competitors lack. The most impressive is Voice Search, in which you use the remote’s built-in microphone to say the name of a movie, actor or genre and see an immediate list of matching options to choose from. Users have always been frustrated by the arrow/OK button dance required to type in a search query. Roku does offer the option of using the virtual keypad of your mobile device (as does Apple with iOS devices), but that means one more gadget to keep track of when you sit down to watch a movie. The Voice Search presentation at Amazon’s demo was impressive. We’ll have to see how it performs in the real world, of course. But this could be a real breakthrough if it’s consistently accurate.

Amazon has chosen to push content to the forefront, so instead of a list of apps on the homescreen, you see large thumbnails of movies and TV shows. Select one, and you’re presented with all of the options for watching it. I’m sure Amazon would love for you to watch it from their library, but if it’s available as part of your Hulu Plus subscription, you’ll find that option displayed as well. Currently, Hulu Plus is the only third party app included in Voice Search. Amazon says it is working to integrate the feature with other apps, like Netflix.

Amazon credits the Fire TV’s quad-core processor for an impressively responsive interface. And a hefty 2GB of RAM helps eliminate the few seconds of buffering at the start of streaming movies. While the immediate start to movies was impressive in the on-stage demo, I’m not sure just how many users are overly bothered by waiting a moment for their movie to start. Buffering during a show is another matter, of course, but that’s typically due to poor broadband performance.

Fire TV’s other big advantage lies with the casual gamer. Amazon has no illusions about peeling off hard-core PS4 or Xbox users. But providing access to a reasonably varied, and inexpensive selection of games could make the Fire TV a very attractive option for families. And speaking of families, Amazon’s new FreeTime feature that allows parents to give their kids a customized subset of content to watch, and set daily time limits will be appreciated (at least by the adults) in my household.

What really works in Amazon’s favor is that even if gaming or parental controls aren’t your thing, you’re not paying any extra for them. At the same price as an Apple TV or Roku 3, you’re getting a potentially much better search experience a sleek, responsive interface, and a solid lineup of content providers. (HBO Go is conspicuous by its absence, but Amazon says it is still talking with potential partners). Add it all up and it’s hard to make a case against the strong value that the Fire TV presents compared its rivals.

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Probably worth mentioning the differences in content you can get on the various boxes. Because it has a public SDK, Roku has literally thousands of channels (and lets you load “private channels” which don’t go through an approval/censorship process), so of course many of them are garbage, but one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. The other advantage I see in Roku is that they’re unencumbered by trying to lock you into an in-house provider. By comparison, now that Apple TV has iTunes Radio, it seems unlikely we’ll ever see Pandora, Spotify, Rdio, etc. Amazon Fire TV has competing services now (including Netflix and Hulu despite the fact they compete with Amazon Instant Video), but as an upstart, they basically have to include those popular incumbents.

FWIW, our house has two Rokus, an Apple TV, and a Chromecast, and I rate them in exactly that order. We’re in Amazon Prime, but I doubt we’ll get the Fire TV, as it offers nothing compelling over these other boxes (and with all the foreign-language programming I watch, mostly anime via Crunchyroll, I can’t imagine the Fire TV’s voice recognition would even work for me).

I have all three the options, and i have to note: 1) Roku does not allow me to play HBO Go because they are disallowed to do so by Comcast 2) Chromecast excels with Google Music and Youtube collaborative queueing is awesome.

But otherwise i agree with most of these points. The remote would have been welcome on the Chromecast.

Sup Mr Forbes Contributor , First the biggest point you missed is so called “Local Content”. That said no point in cutting the cord if your going to have to subscribe to dozens of different streaming services. Second , Simplicity I dont really need yet another wiz-bang that plays Netflix ,YouTube, and Pandora . I ve got the TV , DVR, XBox, and the fridge , that do that what i need is something simple. Also I think i have enough remotes to fish out the couch. Third Nobody uses all those 1001 useless apps, You give all those utterly use-less apps on the Ruku and Fire TV way to much weight. Again I ve got dozens of devices with dozens of useless apps. Games on the Ruku was’t even worth mentioning, Nobody is playing a buggy Angry Birds on there tv with a little remote. I could be proven wrong…not. Give me rock solid basic apps that just work. Simply dont need the gimmicky uselessBS. Lastly ,Taget Demo while i dont think it there is a real TD , as Google just made to put YouTube on your HDTV. As Google TV isnt doing so hot ,the likly ppl who would be interested in this either simplicity or more wiz-bangs to add to collection. IMHO Fire Stick just jumps on the bandwagon tethered to mother Amazon. Ruku stick is a water down Roku Box ( 2 or 3).Just to get back its market share. while not being better than the Roku 3 or more innovative then the basic built in tv/device apps ( that you Actually use). Chromecast simple ,innovative control, well designed app integration,(public sdk makes life good). Allcast (aircast, localcast) most useful app ever,Screen mirroring (duh !!) and less propaganda-y then the Games for Roku Stick.